Blog: Travelling with Pride in Birmingham

1 June 2015
To start our new blog we're handing over to Chief Inspector Chris
Casey. He blogs about why his team represented us at
this year's Birmingham Pride.Have you seen our officers at Pride? Have you got a
question about our work to reduce hate crime? Join in with the
comments at the end of the blog.

We stepped up our effort this year for Birmingham’s Gay Pride to
coincide with our #WeStandTogether
campaign, and it was a huge success. Birmingham Pride is the first
big Gay Pride event across the country and it really did raise the
bar this year. As a gay officer I am really proud to have been able
to represent the Force, but I’m even prouder that the officers
involved over the whole week were a mixture of gay and straight
officers who volunteered to get involved.

For 18-22 May we had a stall at Birmingham New Street station
promoting our Text 61016
campaign and talking about travelling on the railway with pride. We
were joined by our colleagues from the Safer Travel Partnership
throughout the week; they were talking to people about the Project
Empower campaign, which focuses on encouraging passengers to report
sexual offences across the transport network in the West
Midlands.

We also took the opportunity to ask our officers to support
Stonewall’s ‘No Bystanders’
campaign; it goes without saying that we will never be
bystanders when it comes to hate crime, but I know that some LGBT
people lack confidence in the police and I want to do everything
possible to show we will take hate crime seriously.

Our stall at the event gave us great platform to talk to the
public about our work and there was lots of interest in joining us.
I think the pictures show that it was an absolutely spectacular day
and it was lovely to have such a warm welcome from the local
community. We even ended up on stage in front of over 1,000 people
dancing to the YMCA! It’s really important to show our human side,
and it was well received; the DJ said that he never thought he’d
see it in his lifetime.

Over the weekend we then had a stall at Birmingham Pride and we
marched in the parade alongside colleagues from all of the
emergency services. It was great to hear huge cheers when we walked
past the huge crowds lining the route. We also had three beautiful
police puppies with us that certainly made us extra popular! For me
personally, and for our officers, marching in the parade is a
really clear representation of our support for the LGBT
community.

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